Ziggy sandwiched between tradition, today in 'Deli Man'

Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston proves to be the mensch of "Deli Man."

Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston proves to be the mensch of "Deli Man."

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Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston proves to be the mensch of "Deli Man."

Ziggy Gruber of Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston proves to be the mensch of "Deli Man."

Ziggy sandwiched between tradition, today in 'Deli Man'

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You may see better, more Oscar-worthy documentaries this year. But you will never see one more mouthwatering than "Deli Man," Erik Greenberg Anjou's look at the dying dietary tradition of America's Jewish delicatessens.

It's a playful and tasty crash course in deli history, deli dining and deli language, a world of smoked meats, cured meats and fresh fish. Vegetarians are excused.

You'll learn that greater New York had more than 1,500 kosher delis, and just as many Jewish non-kosher ones, at the peak of deli chic - the 1940s. "One on every street corner," entertainers such as Jerry Stiller and Fyvush Finkel marvel. Now, there aren't but 150 or so over all of North America.

You'll learn that pastrami was an invention of Romanian Jewish immigrants and that "schmaltz" (poultry fat) is "the WD-40 of the kosher kitchen - the KY of the Jewish marriage, too." Yeah, you're going to pick up a shtickle of Yiddish, especially words that relate to comfort-food deli dishes, not all of them Old World Jewish, strictly speaking.

We visit Katz's on Manhattan's Lower East Side and Manny's in Chicago, Canter's in Los Angeles and Nate 'N Al's in Beverly Hills, Yitz's in Toronto and Kenny & Ziggy's in Houston.

That's where Anjou's film finds its mensch, David "Ziggy" Gruber, grandson of a deli man, a London-trained chef who looked at the old men aging out of the business and asked himself, "Who is going to perpetuate this food?" He would, by opening an insanely popular New York delicatessen in Texas.

Ziggy, a portly 40something "married to the business," is the film's poet.

More Information

'Deli Man'

Rated PG-13: for some language

Running time: 90 minutes

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"When I cook, I feel my ancestors around me," he says. "You can taste the diaspora!"

The owners, young and old, who still run these restaurants can see them as a grind, a physically, financially (check out the price of meat these days) and emotionally draining job that you live and breathe, seven days a week. The idealistic ones see them as Jewish outreach, creating extended families among their clientele, and as "community builders" in their neighborhoods.